Is this a legitimate action? Will it accomplish its goal of getting “these people”? How are they charging specific people (the 3 princes)? I was under the impression that there was not a clear line of evidence connecting the government of Sudan and several banks to the attacks of Sept. 11. Does we finally have a specific target, or is this a reaction based on vengance and desperation? There should be some sort of retribution for Sept. 11, but are we getting the right people?
just highlighting one of the groups they are suing, the government of Sudan, what exactly are they hoping to achieve here? Say they succeed, and somehow get the sudanese government to pay out, do they really think the government will foot the bill from their own pockets and not use money that would have been used for the general public of Sudan who had nothing to do with whatever crimes a few individuals in the government have committed?
i fear this is true of many of the bodies/groups that are being sued, even if they succeed, they are just going to pass their hardship onto people below them who were not at fault.
I wonder if they really have hopes to get some money out of this or if it’s just some kind of stunt. If it’s the latter, what are they trying to accomplish? To get the rest of the world to laugh at them?
60 years ago, such a blatant attack on U.S. soil meant a large-scale war that climaxed with the use of nuclear weapons. The people affected the most were not personally responsible for the attack, but the goal was to destroy the regimes to which they belonged. A lawsuit seems relatively civilized.
The difference here, Bryan, is that if you’d sued in 1941, at least you’d know the party responsible for the attack.
This suit seems to me to be sort of along the lines of “We wanna jillion skillion dollars, and we’re gonna sue everyone!” The extent to which some of the parties sued can be reasonably considered responsible for 9/11 is… well, in some cases, it’s a pretty tenuous connection. You’re suing bin Laden’s FAMILY? Gosh, that’s neat - so if your brother harms me using money he inherited from your father I can sue you, even if you think he’s a dink? It’s just a sue-everyone-you-can-think-of case.
If I were a Serb whose family was killed in the 1999 war in Kosovo and Serbia, and my family was slain in a legally questionable attack on a civilian target launched by an F-18 (and many civilian targets were deliberately attacked, let’s be frank) and I filed a suit against the United States, McDonnell-Douglas, the Bank of America, Raytheon, William J. Clinton, Madeline Albright, NATO, Tony Blair, Reuters News Service, AP, the Federal Reserve, Citigroup, and fifty other parties, would anyone in the U.S. take such a thing seriously, or would I be viewed as a total crank?
The Middle East relies heavily on the Western economic system, and American dollars as do the Muslim charities and the banks that do business with either.
If we sue and win (and we will eventually,) those entities will have to pay out the award, or risk having assets seized by the US government and lose their ability to do business with us.
It’s economic warfare. Hit the terrorists in their supporters pocketbooks. Very very smart.
Um I don’t think the attack cost more than a million dollars and I haven’t seen any evidence that the money for the attacks came from any of the entities mentioned. Not to mention the fact that US has killed thousands of innocent civilians itself in the last few years.
“The Middle East relies heavily on the Western economic system”
And the US also relies on the MidEast in various ways as well; not just on oil but hundreds of billions of dollars invested by Saudis in American financial markets. If a big chunk of that money were to be frightened away by noises of law-suits and government expropriation it could create a severe strain on the US finanical system especially at a time when the US needs a billion dollars a day to finance its current account deficit and when its own government finances are eroding quickly.
No we don’t rely on the oil. The fact is that we could do without Mideast oil. The problem is that our allies can’t. Those hundreds of billions of dollars that you talk about being invested in our financial markets are here because they need to be here. Our treasury market represents the creme de la creme of conservative investment. With the demand that’s out there on the T-bills and the lousy interest rates, we sure as hell could afford to have that money walk. In fact, some big treasury sellers would be a positive boon. We’d get along fine without it.
No. That’s just wrong. The fact is that it wouldn’t even be a speed bump to our economy, and it would destroy them to pull out.
The mid-east needs us much much more than we need them.
If a big chunk of that money were to be frightened away by noises of law-suits and government expropriation it could create a severe strain on the US finanical system especially at a time when the US needs a billion dollars a day to finance its current account deficit and when its own government finances are eroding quickly.
This makes no sense. Should we arsonists go free because if we send them to jail, they won’t be able to support their kids? Should we let the Enrons of the world go unpunished because if we go after them, their innocent low-level employees will lose their retirement savings?
Of course not.
It may be that type of case, and if so, the people who shouldn’t be involved should be dropped quickly. But you can’t honestly say the connection is “tenuous” when you haven’t seen any of the evidence.
This is a RICO case, CyberPundit, not a conspiracy case. Unlike in conspiracy cases, it doesn’t much matter whether your dollars went to pay for the 9/11 attacks. What matters is if you are part of a “criminal enterprise.”
As for the US killing civilians in the last few years, what does that have to do with whether this case is meritorious? The US ain’t suing anybody - and is probably very upset that this lawsuit was filed. If the family members of those killed by the US want to bring a lawsuit, let them bring a lawsuit.
As for the case itself, I have no idea whether it is meritorious on the facts. It is certainly meritorious on the law. It’s a valid cause of action, but the plaintiffs still have to produce evidence.
no but the point is in your examples above whilst innocent people do get effected the people to blame do actually recieve their just deserves. If you sue the government of Sudan, they are probably the only people in Sudan who arent going to feel the hardship, the innocent people still get effected but the people you were trying to get in the first place are in the position to maintain their lifestyle and luxories as if nothing had happened.
All im trying to say is by all means punish the people to blame but make sure you are actually punishing them and not just the lives of the people under them.
Fine, morbid - if the U.S. government accidently leaks a toxic gas from a facility, and the cloud kills 3,000 people, should the US government not be sued? The money won in the lawsuit will not come from the pockets of the politicians or bureaucrats responsible, but instead from the general budget. The result will be cuts in funding for various and sundry programs that benefit the members of the public.
Scylla,
1)Oil is a pretty fungible product with a world market and a world price. So it doesn’t really matter where the US gets its oil from, if Saudi supply is cut sharpy it will have to pay a much higher price. This is especially true in the short run because the Saudis have the biggest excess capacity in the industry and are the “swing” producer.
2)A quick look at the Economist confirms that European govt. bonds actually pay a slightly higher interest rate and are just as safe as US treasury bonds; so yes the Arabs definitely have a choice.
3)500 billions dollars or so is roughly the same as the assets of a big bank and if it all flees the US quickly it will certainly have a big impact on the financial system.
Sua Sponte
So how exactly does the law define “criminal enterprise”? Does that mean that any entity with a connection to Islamic terrorist groups, has to shell out billions of dollars to 9-11 victims even if it doesn’t have anything to do with 9-11 specifically? I don’t know what the law is but it doesn’t sound too plausible to me.
Funny but true. The elements of RICO are as follows:
(1) that the defendant
(2) through the commission of two or more acts
(3) constituting a pattern’
(4) of racketeering activity
(5) directly or indirectly invests in, or maintains an interest in, or participates in the conduct of
(6) an enterprise
(7) the activities of which affect interstate or foreign commerce.
18 U.S.C. §1962(a-c)
As for an enterprise, the Supreme Court looked at it this way.
An enterprise must have its own identifiable structure and must operate as a continuing unit. U.S. v. Turkette, 452 U.S. 576, 583 (1981). Further, the enterprise must evince a common purpose on the part of those who collaborate in it. Id. Where the alleged enterprise is not a legal entity, the plaintiff must show that it is an association-in-fact which shares a common purpose, exhibits an ongoing structure, and functions as a common unit. Id.
BTW, I misspoke in my last post. There can be a conspiracy to violate RICO, which is probably the allegation here.
Basically, the “common purpose” is the key. It need not be a common purpose to commit a particular act, but instead a common purpose in advancing the criminal goals of the enterprise - harming America and Americans. If you are part of the conspiracy to violate RICO, you are liable for the acts committed by the enterprise to advance the common purpose, even if you are not shown to be aware of the particular acts.
And yes, it greatly expands liability. That’s the point. RICO was enacted because crime bosses were able to avoid liability for their actions by insulating themselves from the actual criminal acts through layers of subordinates. “Civil RICO is an unusually potent weapon — the litigation equivalent of a thermonuclear device.” Katzman v. Victoria’s Secret Catalogue, 167 F.R.D. 649, 655 (S.D.N.Y. 1996)
you make a fair point Sua, the victims should indeed be able to sue those responsible for their losses, i think perhaps we are looking at this from different angles.
“It’s not the money. We want to do something to get at these people,” (taken from the quote from the article in the first post).
if it was just about the money I would agree with you whole heartedly, ive simply been trying to explain why i dont think suing the sudanese government is going to achieve their main goal of hitting the guilty parties where it hurts.
Morbid, it appears that the assumption of the plaintiffs is that the Sudanese government is not all sweetness and light, giving out all its funds to the poor of Sudan (indeed, the Sudanese government are a bunch of pikers - whether they are al-Qaeda-supporting pikers is a matter now for the court). Instead, they are using government funds to support (directly or indirectly) the killing of Americans.
So, if the Sudanese government is guilty and has to pay up, it’s that much less money that can be used to kill other Americans.
